Guide: Getting Started with Cryptocurrency
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What is Cryptocurrency( also known as Digital Currency)?
-Cryptocurrency is a form of digital cash. You can buy it, trade it, spend it and mine it (digitally).Bitcoins and Altcoins(variations of Bitcoins) are still in their infancy as a technology and as an experiment. Bitcoin, which was the first ever and still the most important cryptocurrency, was invented by an unknown inventor by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. His idea was not really to create a new form of currency but to allow for the transfer of currency digitally to remove all the little pesky fees and double charges that are involved when moving currency from point A to point B. 1 Bitcoin can be divisible into one hundred million units named Satoshis after it’s creator. In May 2010, The value of 1 bitcoin was less then 1 penny today the value of 1 Bitcoin is roughly $4320 to 1 US Dollar and has reached a value as high as $5000. Overnight, bitcoin created over 200 Millionaires. The growth of Bitcoin sparked an arms race in the digital currency world giving rise to over 1000 variations and increasing almost daily. There are even variations of variations. Example Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. (see link below for a total list of available digital currencies) Many of the new currencies seek to improve on Bitcoins features such as privacy, transaction speed and stability. Newer currencies like Ethereum and Monero have become popular by improving on bitcoin and providing a currency where both the sender and receiver can remain anonymous. Another feature that is being implemented to some newer coins is the ability to program the coins for a specific purpose. This feature has given rise to smart contracts. For example a business can program a certain amount of that currency for one of it’s departments, as a budget. The remaining balance then automatically goes back to general account if the whole amount was not spent. The applications are virtually endless. To conclude, Bitcoin and digital currency, once adopted worldwide, will change how we use currency.
Links: http://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-i...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...How does it work?
- A bitcoin or digital currency is basically digital data with an encryption to make it unique. Kind of like the serial number on a dollar. When that data is sent it has to be recorded as a transaction on a public database called a ledger or Blockchain. All transactions are public but every transaction needs to be verified to maintain accuracy and totally eliminate the possibility of fraud. This is where Miners come in. A miner is simply a computer that verifies those transactions. In return for using your computing power to support that particular cryptocurrency network, you are then paid in shares of that cryptocurrency. Those shares hold value just like shares on the stock market and can be exchanged for cold hard cash or traded for other forms of cryptocurrencies. Please see this short YouTube video. It is excellent.
Links:
- A bitcoin or digital currency is basically digital data with an encryption to make it unique. Kind of like the serial number on a dollar. When that data is sent it has to be recorded as a transaction on a public database called a ledger or Blockchain. All transactions are public but every transaction needs to be verified to maintain accuracy and totally eliminate the possibility of fraud. This is where Miners come in. A miner is simply a computer that verifies those transactions. In return for using your computing power to support that particular cryptocurrency network, you are then paid in shares of that cryptocurrency. Those shares hold value just like shares on the stock market and can be exchanged for cold hard cash or traded for other forms of cryptocurrencies. Please see this short YouTube video. It is excellent.
http://cryptocurrencyfacts.com/how-...
- What to know about mining and How to Start?
- Getting started with mining has now become very easy. Before, you had to know how to use windows command line(CMD) or Terminal on Linux. Today there exist a couple of Guiminers. Guiminers basically do the CMD or terminal work for you in the background and all you have to do is press buttons to choose what you want. One of the most popular is Minergate. (I feel I should also put in this disclaimer. I don’t work for minergate nor am I an affiliate nor do I profit in anyway by sharing this information with you. As a matter of fact. I don’t profit from any of this information provided.) You will find the link to the site below. Create an account and download the free program and your system will start mining for you. For more advance users who know how to use CMD and Terminal there are many such miners out there also. They are generally faster and more reliable. Here are a few of them. Guiminer, Claymore’s CPU and Claymore’s GPU miner, NiceHash Zcash miners, Silent Army, Genoil, Wolf’s, Sgminer and ccminer. A lot of those that I mentioned here can be configured to work with minergate. See link below. CPU mining is OK but not the most profitable. Newer CPU’s have a new script technology that allows them to process scripts faster. Over time it has been found that GPU (video cards) can mine way faster than CPU’s can. For the serious and more advance miner, you will want to use video cards to mine. You also need CMD and Terminal knowledge to mine with GPU. The easiest GPU miner for a beginner that I have found is Claymore’s GPU miner. It is also worth pointing out that due to the difficulty of Bitcoin, even GPU mining is not cost effective anymore. The power cost would exceed the return you get for mining with it. Bitcoin can be mined using what is called an Application Specific Integrated Circuit or ASIC. This is basically a processor designed for the sole purpose of mining bitcoin and other coins that use the same algorithm. You can get those off many of the popular electronic sites including amazon. The best GPU to mine the other currencies are the ATI Cards(now owned by AMD). You will see different companies selling them such as XFX ATI, Sapphire ATI, PNY etc... The first name is usually the company that buys the GPU from AMD and makes it into a video card. They each put different features to differentiate themselves from others. But they all work great for mining. Among the best ATI cards are the RX570 and the RX580 cards. You can find all of your computer parts on popular sites like amazon.com, tigerdirect.com and newegg.com etc... Nvidia cards are fine for mining but they are not as good as ATI cards in general with the except of some higher end and pricey ones. If you already have a high end ATI card in your computer, look into mining with it using the Claymore GPU miner application. New software is being developed everyday to aid the mining field.
Links: www.minergate.com
https://minergate.com/altminers/cla...
https://bitcointalk.org/
http://www.cryptobadger.com/build-y...
- Getting started with mining has now become very easy. Before, you had to know how to use windows command line(CMD) or Terminal on Linux. Today there exist a couple of Guiminers. Guiminers basically do the CMD or terminal work for you in the background and all you have to do is press buttons to choose what you want. One of the most popular is Minergate. (I feel I should also put in this disclaimer. I don’t work for minergate nor am I an affiliate nor do I profit in anyway by sharing this information with you. As a matter of fact. I don’t profit from any of this information provided.) You will find the link to the site below. Create an account and download the free program and your system will start mining for you. For more advance users who know how to use CMD and Terminal there are many such miners out there also. They are generally faster and more reliable. Here are a few of them. Guiminer, Claymore’s CPU and Claymore’s GPU miner, NiceHash Zcash miners, Silent Army, Genoil, Wolf’s, Sgminer and ccminer. A lot of those that I mentioned here can be configured to work with minergate. See link below. CPU mining is OK but not the most profitable. Newer CPU’s have a new script technology that allows them to process scripts faster. Over time it has been found that GPU (video cards) can mine way faster than CPU’s can. For the serious and more advance miner, you will want to use video cards to mine. You also need CMD and Terminal knowledge to mine with GPU. The easiest GPU miner for a beginner that I have found is Claymore’s GPU miner. It is also worth pointing out that due to the difficulty of Bitcoin, even GPU mining is not cost effective anymore. The power cost would exceed the return you get for mining with it. Bitcoin can be mined using what is called an Application Specific Integrated Circuit or ASIC. This is basically a processor designed for the sole purpose of mining bitcoin and other coins that use the same algorithm. You can get those off many of the popular electronic sites including amazon. The best GPU to mine the other currencies are the ATI Cards(now owned by AMD). You will see different companies selling them such as XFX ATI, Sapphire ATI, PNY etc... The first name is usually the company that buys the GPU from AMD and makes it into a video card. They each put different features to differentiate themselves from others. But they all work great for mining. Among the best ATI cards are the RX570 and the RX580 cards. You can find all of your computer parts on popular sites like amazon.com, tigerdirect.com and newegg.com etc... Nvidia cards are fine for mining but they are not as good as ATI cards in general with the except of some higher end and pricey ones. If you already have a high end ATI card in your computer, look into mining with it using the Claymore GPU miner application. New software is being developed everyday to aid the mining field.
If you are new to Cryptos and mining. Go ahead and watch some of the videos I posted and find some more step by step guides on youtube. Welcome to the community.
Great post and very informative. @cryptobasics Have learnt a lot from it.
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